Post by Brad Nelson on Dec 19, 2022 7:37:35 GMT -8
The White Lotus
I've watched two episodes of this dark comedy – a sort of (only sort of) modern Fantasy Island. I was referred to it by an article on some conservative site boasting about how it was a counter-cultural, even conservative, series.
Let me just say that the early signs of Jonah Goldberg becoming expert at lying to himself perhaps started when he wrote an article stating how Breaking Bad was a great conservative series.
Old Yeller, High Plains Drifter, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Shane, even Field of Dreams can be considered conservative movies. There are good guys and bad guys, no virtue signaling (with the exception of some quite obnoxious parts of Field of Dreams where his idiot wife gives a speech about banned books), good values on display, and people willing to do more than talk in the face of evil.
Breaking Bad was conservative in the same way a brothel is conservative. Hey, sex between a loving married man and a woman is a good thing, so a coarse portrayal of it, by definition, is some kind of validation of the right path if only because you're seeing the wrong path. I guess.
I don't mind occasionally watching a sort of "guilty pleasure" movie or series. But I never pretend that it isn't trash and that there might not be something trashy about myself for finding it entertaining.
In the case of The White Lotus, it certainly does spoof the self-obsessed narcissistic class of Bad White People who go to expensive resorts on Hawaii to be pampered. And there is some humor to be found in this. The best character by far is the resort manager who tries to keep these pampered and spoiled guests happy, explaining to one of his new employees that you have to think of them as children.
But are there good and virtuous people in here struggling against the tide of narcissism and corruption? No, it's all a cynical portrayal (probably accurate in some respects) without even the idea that we can, or should, rise above this.
But then comedies don't necessarily have to have a strong moral message. They can just be zany and silly. And this one is at times just that. But I'm still astounded at these idiot "conservative" writers who try to justify their trashy tastes by calling something conservative.
Anyway, as a dark comedy it's watchable enough through the first two episodes. But I don't see this one having the legs to go very far. Still, it does have some interesting features. There is the newlywed husband who is ruining his honeymoon by obsessing on the fact that (apparently) the resort double-booked the room he had paid for and he was thus given a different suite.
Then there's the father who thinks he has a deadly disease and is dealing with it with what you can only call a modern, morally-bankrupt family. He actually does (eventually), in his own way, provide some good, old-fashioned virtue. And the point is how it is shot down by his callous modern family.
The worst segment by far is Jennifer Coolidge playing some kind of over-her-prime woman looking for apparently nothing more than a good massage. We'll see where this goes. But I did fast-forward one extensive segment with her.
I'll watch the third episode of this six-episode first season. But I would be very much surprised if I finish the season. It all depends on whether they can weave a bit of a tapestry with these characters as they proceed or if it's all about just repeating the same one-trick-pony shtick.
Apparently in the second season it's an entirely new cast of characters who visit the resort.
I've watched two episodes of this dark comedy – a sort of (only sort of) modern Fantasy Island. I was referred to it by an article on some conservative site boasting about how it was a counter-cultural, even conservative, series.
Let me just say that the early signs of Jonah Goldberg becoming expert at lying to himself perhaps started when he wrote an article stating how Breaking Bad was a great conservative series.
Old Yeller, High Plains Drifter, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Shane, even Field of Dreams can be considered conservative movies. There are good guys and bad guys, no virtue signaling (with the exception of some quite obnoxious parts of Field of Dreams where his idiot wife gives a speech about banned books), good values on display, and people willing to do more than talk in the face of evil.
Breaking Bad was conservative in the same way a brothel is conservative. Hey, sex between a loving married man and a woman is a good thing, so a coarse portrayal of it, by definition, is some kind of validation of the right path if only because you're seeing the wrong path. I guess.
I don't mind occasionally watching a sort of "guilty pleasure" movie or series. But I never pretend that it isn't trash and that there might not be something trashy about myself for finding it entertaining.
In the case of The White Lotus, it certainly does spoof the self-obsessed narcissistic class of Bad White People who go to expensive resorts on Hawaii to be pampered. And there is some humor to be found in this. The best character by far is the resort manager who tries to keep these pampered and spoiled guests happy, explaining to one of his new employees that you have to think of them as children.
But are there good and virtuous people in here struggling against the tide of narcissism and corruption? No, it's all a cynical portrayal (probably accurate in some respects) without even the idea that we can, or should, rise above this.
But then comedies don't necessarily have to have a strong moral message. They can just be zany and silly. And this one is at times just that. But I'm still astounded at these idiot "conservative" writers who try to justify their trashy tastes by calling something conservative.
Anyway, as a dark comedy it's watchable enough through the first two episodes. But I don't see this one having the legs to go very far. Still, it does have some interesting features. There is the newlywed husband who is ruining his honeymoon by obsessing on the fact that (apparently) the resort double-booked the room he had paid for and he was thus given a different suite.
Then there's the father who thinks he has a deadly disease and is dealing with it with what you can only call a modern, morally-bankrupt family. He actually does (eventually), in his own way, provide some good, old-fashioned virtue. And the point is how it is shot down by his callous modern family.
The worst segment by far is Jennifer Coolidge playing some kind of over-her-prime woman looking for apparently nothing more than a good massage. We'll see where this goes. But I did fast-forward one extensive segment with her.
I'll watch the third episode of this six-episode first season. But I would be very much surprised if I finish the season. It all depends on whether they can weave a bit of a tapestry with these characters as they proceed or if it's all about just repeating the same one-trick-pony shtick.
Apparently in the second season it's an entirely new cast of characters who visit the resort.